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'Diablo 3' PvP Delayed Yet Again: Games You Should Play While You Wait

Blizzard has delayed Diablo 3 PvP once again. Here are a whole bunch of games you can play while you wait.

When it launched this past May, gamers were disappointed to learn that Diablo 3 would not include a Player vs. Player (PvP) mode from the get-go. It would release later in a patch, but it wasn’t ready yet and the dev team wanted to get it right.

Months later, PvP remains elusive. In an update at the official website, lead designer Jay Wilson unloads the bad news: Team Deathmatch has been scrapped, and the only PvP mode coming any time soon is 1 on 1 dueling mode.

“Without more varied objectives, or very lucrative rewards, few saw our current iteration as something they’d want spend a lot of time in,” writes Wilson.

Balance is also a problem. “We want to be able to carry over as many of the crazy runes, items, and skills as possible, with their crazy effects, and alter them as little as possible,” Wilson notes. “In a casual PvP mode, something equivalent to a WoW Battleground, this would be fine, but Team Deathmatch felt very hardcore, and it put a laser focus on class balance in a way that we didn’t think would be good for the game as a whole.”

For my part, I remain happy to see Blizzard working hard to get the game right.

The patches and updates to the game so far have been excellent, and the openness about the current struggles with PvP is welcome. While I do think the WoW Battleground casual PvP mode would be a good tide-me-over for players itching to bash one another’s heads in now, I understand why the team wants the PvP to be excellent right off the bat. Anything less could easily be a worse step than nothing at all.

Paul Tassi argues that this might be a sign that Diablo 3 is low on the Blizzard priority list. I’m not so sure. I think what we’re witnessing is a team doing its best to regain its footing after a strangely successful and disappointing launch.

As we all know, Diablo 3 languished in development purgatory for many years. The entire game was scrapped at one point, and an entirely new team took over the game’s new direction.

In an age of League of Legends and Dota 2 style multiplayer games, coming out with a compelling PvP experience is going to be really crucial for the game’s longevity.

But the continued delays may also have something to do with Blizzard’s plans to eventually get in on the ARTS genre that their own Warcraft 3 helped lay the groundwork for. Blizzard All-Stars remains extremely short on details, and one hopes they come up with a better name for the game when it does launch, but Blizzard is almost certainly devoting resources to that project. Is cross-pollination between the game and the Diablo 3 PvP taking place? Is there something else at play?

Whatever the case, it’s not like fans of Diablo 3 are completely without options. Here are some other action-RPGs to tide you over while you wait (as well as some non-RPG online PvP games that might scratch the itch):

There are things about Diablo 3 that I like better than Torchlight 2, but overall Runic Games’s $20 ARPG is a better buy than Diablo 3. When full modding tools and Steam Workshop integration launch, the game will rival any click-and-loot game out there.

Torchlight 2 also has a very bare-bones PvP mode. Through the console you can set your character to hostile and fight other players in co-op mode. It’s not much, but it beats nothing at all.

Purely in terms of mood, Path of Exile is a better successor to Diablo 2 than Diablo 3. It’s also a really excellent action-RPG that presents you with multiple paths and tough choices.

Character builds are deep and the loot and gem-leveling system make those builds even more complex. The game has a haunting soundtrack and an excellent, gritty art-style.

And even though it’s still in beta, Path of Exile has PvP which is already really top-notch. You can buy into the beta now or wait for the game to launch as a free-to-play title. Any fan of Diablo 2 should play this magnificent indie title.

The PC edition of Dark Souls and the Artorias of the Abyss DLC for consoles add a brand new PvP mode to From Software’s masterpiece. While before you could invade or battle it out in the forest, the new multiplayer arena gives players new options for slaughter without risking souls or humanity in the process.

If you’re accustomed to click-and-loot style games, you’ll need to adjust your play style somewhat for the Souls games, but it’s well worth your time. Just getting to the good PvP spots in Dark Souls will eat up plenty of time.

But it’s time well spent. Dark Souls remains one of my favorite games of all time with or without the PvP.

The MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) or ARTS (action real-time strategy) genre is growing. Both the Dota 2 beta and the free-to-play League of Legends have been wildly successful, and console iterations such as Guardians of Middle Earth or the mobile Heroes of Order and Chaos have also been surprisingly good. Other PC titles such as Heroes of Newerth keep the competition between titles almost as fierce as the matches themselves.

In other words, you can get an endless supply of PvP goodness out of these games, most of which are entirely free to play with pretty reasonable in-game purchase options. It’s not the same as what I imagine Diablo 3 PvP ought to (or will) be, but since these games are PvP only they have a less difficult time with character balance.

Warning: these games eat up a ton of time and may ruin your non-online social life.

Just like it’s a shame that Diablo 3 doesn’t include a PvP, it’s a shame that medieval combat titles Chivalry and War of the Roses don’t have a single-player campaign. I’d care about both games more if they had some adventure-RPG elements.

Still, when it comes to strategic online multiplayer battles, War of the Roses and Chivalry are both really good. War of the Roses continues to receive free content updates, though indie studio Torn Banner has put together a more engrossing combat experience with Chivalry in my humblest of opinions.

Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO that’s really grown on me, and even the PvP mode grew on me after a while. I still haven’t gotten into World vs. World, but the combination of the two competitive modes makes Guild Wars 2 an excellent choice for PvP combat.

Like Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 is a one-time purchase with no subscription fee and it’s a pretty great value for a game even if there is very little in the way of a compelling end-game.

These are all games that came out in the past year or so, and there are many other PvP options out there…including Diablo 2.

Blizzard may indeed be taking too long to get Diablo 3 PvP up and running, but I think taking the cautious approach is probably a smart move at this point. Hopefully when it does land, the game’s PvP will be innovative and compelling enough to justify the wait.

What other good PvP games do you play? Obviously if we included shooters or turn-based/strategy games we could come up with a too-hefty list, so what other action games would you add to this list?

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Finally, an article that hits the marks on the common complaints with D3 PVP, while actually presenting some alternatives! I’m so sick of seeing the same whiny comments about something we mostly all feel the same way about, with no SOLUTIONS presented. If one recognizes the problem yet offers no solution, are they any better than the problem itself?